Rushed out to this week's appointment with Dawn and arrived ten minutes late. Ironically, it turned out Dawn got stuck in traffic and was twenty minutes late. She came after me. No matter. I did manage to apply for a receptionist job at Inkling Storm Design in Cherry Hill. Trouble is...while I know I don't want to work in healthcare or in schools unless the job is year-round, I don't know what I do want to do. All I know is I want to write or organize or edit, and do it in something that isn't health care or retail.
We were checking the online job search sites for so long, it was almost noon before I went across the street to the Westmont Plaza to run errands. I was hoping to find more cookie boxes and cards. No dice anywhere. I'm disappointed that neither Dollar Tree nor Target has boxes of cards or boxes for cookies. I did pick up a container for the cookies I'll bring to the Acme next month, a really pretty Thanksgiving cards for friends who are having a rough time right now, and gift card boxes at Dollar Tree and gift cards for Anny and Keefe's birthdays, evaporated milk, dark brown sugar, and pie crust at Target, but not what I was originally looking for.
Went home after I got out for lunch and The Monkees. "Monkee Chow Mein" is one of the more problematic episodes today. This parody of Fu Manchu "Yellow Peril" stories has Peter accidentally taking a fortune cookie with a piece of a doomsday formula when the guys are at a Chinese restaurant. Not only is the CIS after the formula, but so is Dragonman, a very stereotypical Chinese agent (played by white man Joey Foreman in Asian makeup, though he does have goons who are actually Chinese). His men accidentally kidnap Micky, then Peter when he goes after him. It's up to Mike and Davy to rescue their friends and make sure the formula ends up in the right hands.
The reason I bought the milk, pie crusts, and brown sugar at Target was for a recipe I found online that I wanted to try. I love apple butter and thought apple butter pie sounded simple and tasty. I skipped a step with the store bought crust...but didn't have any weights to keep it down and didn't want to use up the uncooked rice. The crust did puff up in the middle. At least the filling came out much better, maybe a little too sweet. I think I might use less brown sugar next time. Once I got it into the pan, it looked much better, and tasted fine when I got it out.
Since it was a one-crust pie, I decided to try something simple. I spread apple butter on the other crust, cut them into triangles, and rolled up the triangles to form crescents, then baked them with the pie. Not bad. Should have added more apple butter, or maybe sprinkled the tops with cinnamon or sugar.
Listened to two of my jazz records I've picked up recently while I worked. Country Preacher is really more blues and R&B as Cannonball Adderly performs some of his own songs and a few African-American standards at a concert for "Operation Breadbasket" in 1969. Although the title song was good, I liked the truly unique "Afro-Spanish Omelet," a mix of African sounds like "Umbakwen" and the more Hispanic "Soli Tomba."
Charlie Parker's Greatest Hits go further back. No clue when this actually came out, but most of the songs sound 40's-50's. Parker went in for a much cooler sound in be-bop and rhythm numbers like "Move," "Cool Blues," "Round Midnight," and "Star Eyes."
Went back out around 3:30 while the pie cooled to run two more errands. Dropped the last Thanksgiving card for my friends at the post office, then went further down to Dollar General. There were only three eggs left after I made my pie. Grabbed a carton of eggs, then waited in line while a cashier tried (and failed) to reload a man's phone card. He ended up sending him down the road to CVS.
And actually, the other reason I went out was to enjoy a blustery, chilly day a bit more. It really feels like fall now. The wind blew something fierce, making any leaves that hadn't already fallen come down faster. This time, the sun wasn't enough to overcome that biting wind. I needed my heavy coat for the first time since at least early April.
Put on The Monkees again after I got home. The guys end up with a "Monkee Mother" after their landlord Mr. Babbitt (Henry Cordon) insists on them taking in a border who will actually pay. Millie Resnick (Rose Marie) is a good-hearted, loud-mouthed widow who feeds them and willingly listens to their rehearsals, but also smothers them. Hoping to get their home back, they nudge her towards a relationship with the moving man who helped carry her furniture.
Switched to Bloodhounds of Broadway next. I go further into this Damon Runyon story in honor of the late Mitzi Gaynor at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Worked on the inventory briefly after the movie ended. Added the original cast of Once On This Island, the 2006 Harry Connick Jr. revival of The Pajama Game, and the 1950 studio cast recording of Pal Joey with Vivienne Segal and Harold Lang. I found Pal Joey at the Collingswood Book Festival in 2019 and Island at the FYE in Philly around 2015, but Pajama Game was originally part of a Connick Jr. box set with another show. I have no idea where that came from anymore.
Switched to Match Game Syndicated during dinner and afterwards. Robert Donner and Betty Kennedy made their first appearances during this week. Brett and Charles spent most of the week making fun of her jewelry and his hats and silly accents.
Finished the night working on my review and listening to two of the rare cast albums I found last week. Tenderloin is the story of a crusading preacher who sets his sights on cleaning up "The Tenderloin," the New York slums in the late 1800's. Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans is an odd choice for this melodramatic and relatively dark show. Ron Husmann does better by the show's only hit song, "Artificial Flowers."
High Spirits also flopped in the early 60's, but is otherwise a very different show. Beatrice Lillie plays a daffy medium who accidentally brings up the ghost of the first wife (Tammy Grimes) of a man (Edward Woodward) whose second wife (Louise Troy) is already tired of hearing about her. Oddly, despite this being based on a Noel Coward play and directed by him, he didn't do the music. That would explain why songs like "You'd Better Love Me" when the first wife returns and the patter number "The Bicycle Song" for Lillie are only ok.
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